Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Saavik - she's half Romulan, Jim

Many fans wonder from whence came the idea of Kirstie Alley's Lieutenant Saavik ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") being a Romulan-Vulcan hybrid. Sure, Vonda N McIntyre used the concept in her movie novelizations, but it was originally a (cut) scene from the actual movie. Lucky fans at a US film industry convention called ShoWest saw the scene in a presentation reel, long before the movie premiered:

Note that in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", Robin Curtis's Saavik is played as a full Vulcan, a choice made by her director, Leonard Nimoy (Spock) himself.

You should check out Vonda N McInytre's ST II novelization, or Carolyn Clowes' novel, "The Pandora Principle". Both books go into Saavik's background on Hellguard, a prison planet of Vulcans and their half-Romulan offspring, the products of sexual assaults upon the prisoners. Saavik chose never to learn which of her parents was the Romulan. She was rescued by Spock, raised by his parents and was Spock's protege into the Academy.

In an interview on KTTV (a Los Angeles TV station) in 1982, Kirstie Alley not only revealed that her character was half-Romulan, but that Spock was her father (exact words were "He's my daddy"), making her mother the Romulan commander from the TOS episode "The Enterprise Incident".

Seriously? If this was the case, or something they were talking about, too bad she didn't continue the series. I'll always wonder how much better UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY would've been with Alley as Saavik instead of Valeris.

Jeffin90620, in a "Starlog" interview, that's exactly what Judson Scott said about Joachim's relationship to Khan!

Although the script certainly didn't state it, Judson Scott and Ricardo Montalban got together to do script readings together, away from the studio before filming commenced, and this was the backstory they worked out for themselves.

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About me

Otherwise known as "Therin of Andor", Ian McLean has had an active association with "Star Trek" and science fiction media fandom in Australia since 1980. Before then he was an avid fan of the "Batman" TV series (60s) and the Australian TV classic, "Number 96" (70s).